Carcinogenesis Advance Access originally published online on March 10, 2008
Carcinogenesis 2008 29(5):977-983; doi:10.1093/carcin/bgn065
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Genomic analysis suggests higher susceptibility of children to air pollution
rám5
1 Department of Health Risk Analysis and Toxicology, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands
2 Institute of Public Health, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 5A, 1014 K Copenhagen, Denmark
3 Business Unit BioSciences, TNO Quality of Life, Physiological Genomics, PO Box 360, 3700 AJ Zeist, The Netherlands
4 Faculty of Science, Laboratory of Cell Genetics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussel, Belgium
5 Institute of Experimental Medicine AS CR and Health Institute of Central Bohemia, Vídenská 1083, 142 20 Prague 4, Czech Republic
6 Department of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Box 20, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden
7 Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, KU Medical Center, Mail Stop 1023, 3901 Rainbow Boulevard, Kansas City, KS 66160, USA
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +31 43 3882127; Fax: +31 43 3884146; Email: d.vanleeuwen{at}grat.unimaas.nl
Differences in biological responses to exposure to hazardous airborne substances between children and adults have been reported, suggesting children to be more susceptible. Aim of this study was to improve our understanding of differences in susceptibility in cancer risk associated with air pollution by comparing genome-wide gene expression profiles in peripheral blood of children and their parents. Gene expression analysis was performed in blood from children and parents living in two different regions in the Czech Republic with different levels of air pollution. Data were analyzed by two different approaches: one method first selected significantly differentially expressed genes and analyzed these gene lists for overrepresented biological processes, whereas the other applied the T-profiler tool to directly perform pathway analyses on the total gene set without preselection of significantly modulated gene expressions. In addition, gene expressions in both children and adults were investigated for associations with micronuclei frequencies. Both analysis approaches returned considerably more genes or gene groups and pathways that significantly differed between children from both regions than between parents. Very little overlap was observed between children and adults. The two most important biological processes or molecular functions significantly modulated in children, but not in adults, are nucleosome and immune response related. Our study suggests differences between children and adults in relation to air pollution exposure at the transcriptome level. The findings underline the necessity of implementing environmental health policy measures specifically for protecting children's health.
Abbreviations: EASE, Expression Analysis Systematic Explorer; GEPAS, Gene Expression Pattern Analysis Suite; GO, Gene Ontology; IFN, interferon; MN, micronuclei; PAH, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon
Received June 28, 2007; revised February 27, 2008; accepted March 2, 2008.
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  D. G. A. J. Hebels, D. G. J. Jennen, J. C. S. Kleinjans, and T. M. C. M. de Kok Molecular Signatures of N-nitroso Compounds in Caco-2 Cells: Implications for Colon Carcinogenesis Toxicol. Sci., April 1, 2009; 108(2): 290 - 300. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 C. P. Wild Environmental exposure measurement in cancer epidemiology Mutagenesis, March 1, 2009; 24(2): 117 - 125. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|